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Coincidentally, this is my 100th post ! The time passed way too quickly ! Anyways, I had talked about the Passport Application – Initial formalities in my previous post. Today I’ll be sharing my experience about the second (all important) phase.
To begin with, a HUGE HUGE compliment to the Ministry of External Affair and the Tata Consultancy Services for providing top of the line facilities at the Passport Seva Kendra. Great facility provided ! As my previous post mentioned about the Appointment Bit of it, this will be talking about the live experience at the PSK.
My scheduled appointment was of 14:45 hrs at the Ghaziabad PSK. I missed a part of college so that I could have greater time in hand at the PSK. I reached the PSK at around 13:15 hrs. Just when I reached there, I saw a long queue of people waiting outside the PSK’s entrance. Apparently the queue were made according to the time of appointment. The security guard would call out the time of appointment and all those with that time should for the queue.
Once you enter the PSK – one can say there are 6 Main phases to go through. Initially, upon entering, you get into another queue. I joined the queue at around 16:00hrs. It took me almost 45 mins in the queue. Luckily the office was air conditioned, else God know what would have happened ! Anyways, at the end of the queue was a person checking for the documents. Once he approves, you can proceed to the second phase along with all the documents in a file that will be given by that person.
In the Second Phase, a person call’s out your appointment time. When your time is called, give your file to him. After this you will get a token no. that will be your interim identity till you get out of the PSK. There are many LCD’s put up where the token no. and the corresponding booth is displayed. You can proceed to the Third Phase once your token no. and the booth is displayed on the screen. This one took me roughly around an hour.
In the third phase you go to booth A. Here a TCS computer operator will check all your documents (xerox, original), take your photograph, scan and upload all the documents, take the finger prints, verify the details again and take a payment of Rs 1500/- for normal and Rs 2000/- for tatkal and give you a payment receipt. Once this is done, he will forward you to next booth B. Once again keep an eye on the LCD screen for your token no. and the Booth no. This is a quick phase and takes about 30 minutes.
In the Fourth phase the all important one, you will be facing the Government Officer who will verify your details with the documents. Beware, if there is even a smallest doubt in this mind, he will not hesitate to send you back and ask you to see him next day. He shall ask about your current job, whereabouts and all. Once this is done, he will forward you to the next counter. This is by far the shortest phase, takes about 10 minutes.
In the Fifth Phase once again keep an eye on the LCDs to see which booth you are assigned. This time it will be booth C. Here a person will once again verify your details and if anything is missing, he will ask you to go back to Booth A. Once again the time spent is 5-10 minutes.
In the last and final Sixth Phase, you simple submit the payment receipt given to you at Booth A and in return you will get a Payment Acknowledgement Receipt. You can fill feedback / suggestions if any at this point.
So total time spent was approximately 3 1/2 – 4 hours. The best part of the service was that they would complete all the tokens that have been issued on that day. So no one has to worry that he/she might have to come next day to complete the remaining procedure. Even though the website displays the list of documents to be carried, I will suggest you take copies of all the govt. documents, bank pass books, photo id etc just to be safe. Even if there is missing word in any documents, be ready to head home !
All in all a great great experience, spoke to each and every person at the counter, even the Govt. Official. And at all booths I had to say, Yaar I speak a lot please forgive me 😛
